Sheena Kryzel M.

Javier

BSBA-HRM

Theories in Literature

1. Archetypal Theory

In literature, an archetype is a typical character, an action, or a situation that seems to represent

universal patterns of human nature. An archetype, also known as “universal symbol,” may be a character,
a theme, a symbol, or even a setting. Many literary critics are of the opinion that archetypes – which
have a common and recurring representation in a particular human culture, or entire human race –
shape the structure and function of a literary work.

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist, argued that the root of an archetype is in the “collective unconscious” of
mankind. The phrase “collective unconscious” refers to experiences shared by a race or culture. Such
experiences include such things as love, religion, death, birth, life, struggle, and survival. These
experiences exist in the subconscious of every individual, and are re-created in literary works, or in other
forms of art.

Examples of Archetype in Literature:

Archetypes in Characters

1. The Hero

He or she is a character who predominantly exhibits goodness, and struggles against evil in order to
restore harmony and justice to society. Examples of hero include Beowulf, in the book Beowulf, Hercules,
in the book Hercules, and d’Artagnan, from The Three Musketeers.

2. The Mother Figure

Such a character may be represented as a Fairy God Mother, who guides and directs a child, Mother
Earth, who contacts people and offers spiritual and emotional nourishment, or a Stepmother who treats
their stepchildren poorly. Examples of a mother figure include:

In Literature:

Lucy and Madame Defarge, from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities Disely, from William Faulkner’s The
Sound and the Fury Gladriel, from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Glinda, from the Frank Baum’s The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz
In Fairy Tales:

The wicked stepmother in Charles Perrault’s Cinderella

The fairy godmothers in Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty

Mother Goose The grandmother in Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood

In Mythology:

The mythological figures of Persephone, Demeter, Hecate, Gorgon, Medusa

3. The Innocent Youth

He or she is inexperienced, with many weaknesses, and seeks safety with others. Others like him or her
because of the trust he or she shows in other people. Usually, the experience of coming of age comes in
the later parts of the narratives. Examples of innocent youth include:

Pip in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations

Nicholas Nickle by Joseph from Henry Fielding’s The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews

2. Deconstruction Theory

Deconstructionism, as applied to literary criticism, is a paradox about a paradox: It assumes that all
discourse, even all historical narrative, is essentially disguised self-revelatory messages. Being subjective,
the text has no fixed meaning, so when we read, we are prone to misread. Deconstructionism emerged
from Paris and, notwithstanding its claim to universality, has an evident history. It is a manifestation of
existential anxieties about presence and absence, reality and appearance. It developed via structuralism,
with its emphasis on semantics and symbolism.

Deconstruction's Theory of Language

-based on the belief that language is much more slippery and ambiguous

Example: (Old Saying)

Time flies like an arrow = Times passed quickly

Time - noun

Flies - verb

Like an arrow - adv. clause

Example: (Additional Meaning 1)

Time flies like an arrow = Get out your stopwatch and time the speed of flies as you'd time an arrow's
flight.

Time - verb

Flies - objective

Like an arrow - adv. clause

3. Historical Theory

Historical criticism, literary criticism in the light of historical evidence or based on the context in which a
work was written, including facts about the author’s life and the historical and social circumstances of
the time. This is in contrast to other types of criticism, such as textual and formal, in which emphasis is
placed on examining the text itself while outside influences on the text are disregarded. New Historicism
is a particular form of historical criticism.

Example:

Historical Criticism of Man's Fate

Man’s Fate is a fictional story based on the 1927 Chinese revolution in Shanghai. The main characters,
Ch’en, Kyo, May, Katov, and Old Gisors represent different facets of Malraux’s belief system and
personality. The story opens where Ch’en is in the room of a sleeping man who he’s about to assassinate.
The assassination of the businessman can be seen as the destruction of the capitalism Malraux saw as
the cause of the “oppressed and exploited Chinese”

4. Structuralist Theory

In literary theory, structuralist criticism relates literary texts to a larger structure, which may be a
particular genre, a range of intertextual connections, a model of a universal narrative structure, or a
system of recurrent patterns or motifs. Structuralism argues that there must be a structure in every text,
which explains why it is easier for experienced readers than for non-experienced readers to interpret a
text. Hence, everything that is written seems to be governed by specific rules, or a "grammar of
literature", that one learns in educational institutions and that are to be unmasked.

Example:

Structuralism in Fairy Tales (Cinderella, Snow White etc)

It can be seen that all fairy tales, like Cinderella, follow the same structure that was adapted by Vladimir
Propp, who was influenced by Ferdinand De Saussure and structuralism. Structuralism approaches
literature through understanding the structure that is contained in any literary work of any genre. Fairy
tales are a genre that share the same structure in every tale and carry the same overall message, making
them a very predictable genre that appeals to mostly children. However, fairy tales are constantly
changing with time to adapt to a certain society or culture, but the structure remains the same.

5. Psychoanalytic Theory

Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to
interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and
anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may
psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such
characters are projections of the author's psyche.

One interesting facet of this approach is that it validates the importance of literature, as it is built on a
literary key for the decoding.

Example:

Alice in Wonderland

Psychoanalyzing Alice: The Child and Identity

Later psychoanalysts have focused more Alice’s experiences in Wonderland functioning as an allegory for
the developing ego, or, in other words, for growing up. For, despite having been written by a middle-aged
man, many critics have found it worthwhile to study the character of Alice as an example of the child-
mind dealing learning to understand the world and itself. As Phyllis Stowell writes,

Like all children, Alice must separate herself from identification with others, develop an ego,
become aware of aggression (her own and others’), and learn to tolerate adversity without succumbing
to self-pity…In other words, Alice has to grow up.

Identity is a crucial theme in Alice. Alice is asked to identify herself by several of the creatures of
Wonderland and often she is unable to respond. She usually feels that she is too tall to be herself, or too
small, or that she is another person altogether (“I must have been changed for Mabel!”). And it is only
when “who she is and how she sees herself are no longer subject to the erratic and uncontrollable
unknown” can she gain a measure of power to deal with the absurdity around her.

6. Marxist Criticism
Marxist literary theories tend to focus on the representation of class conflict as well as the reinforcement
of class distinctions through the medium of literature. Marxist theorists use traditional techniques of
literary analysis but subordinate aesthetic concerns to the final social and political meanings of
literature. Marxist theorist often champion authors sympathetic to the working classes and authors
whose work challenges economic equalities found in capitalist societies.

Example:

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Kosenko (1985) posits that the story employs Marxist undertones. According to him, the story
symbolises an attack on capitalism. The story attacks the ideology and social order of the town. One
Marxist explanation for the story lies in the symbol of the black dot made on a paper for the lottery. The
black color of the dot represents evil that is linked to business, which in turn stands for capitalism.

For example, Mr. Summers who draws the dot is involved in the coal business. He represents the
powerful class in capitalism that has the control of the town both politically and economically because
Mr. Summers also administers the lottery (Kosenko, 1985).

7. Reader-Response Theory

•analyzes the reader's role in the production of meaning

•lies at the opposite end of the spectrum from formalism

•the text itself has no meaning until it is read by a reader

•the reader creates the meaning.

•can take into account the strategies employed by the author to elicit a certain response from readers

•denies the possibility that works are universal (i.e. that they will always mean more or less the same
thing to readers everywhere)

Advantages:

•recognizes that different people view works differently and that people's interpretations change over
time.

Disadvantages:

•tends to make interpretation too subjective

•does not provide adequate criteria for evaluating one reading in comparison to another
Example:

Student Response to "The Things They Carry"

"The Things They Carried," by Tim O'Brien at first seemed to be just another war story. As I started
reading I thought I was not going to have any interest at all in the story; however after I got into the story
I found myself more interested than I thought I was going to be. This story is an excellent depiction of
war itself. It is very realistic and easy to relate to even without any personal experience with war. The
title itself paves the way for the entire story, it could not be any better for the story then it is. The entire
story is about "the things they carried," and the author does choose to go into great detail about the
things that they did carry.

Observations about Student Response:

Notice how the student is aware of his reading process. Noticing how your response to a story changes
can be a source of questions.

8. Formalism

•involves a close reading of the text

•work must be found within the work itself

•focuses on analyzing irony, paradox, imagery, and metaphor

•also interested in the work's setting, characters, symbols, and point of view.

•no need to bring in outside information about the history, politics, or society of the time, or about the
author's life

Advantages:

 •can be performed without much research

 •emphasizes the value of literature apart from its context

 •virtually all critical approaches must begin here

Disadvantages:

 •text is seen in isolation

 •ignores the context of the work

 •cannot account for allusions

Example:

The Story of an Hour

In Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”, a formalist criticism is used to show the forms of symbolism,
imagery, and theme portraying the mixed emotions of a wife who just lost her husband. Many people
may overlook some of the subtle things described in this short story as just being a common occurrence,
but it is much deeper than that. Going more in depth with formalist criticism will help bring out all of the
great, hidden qualities the story possesses. Irving Howe states that once formalist literary theories are
found within, entire aspects of the story change for the reader.

9. Feminism

Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist theory, or more broadly, by the politics
of feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the language of literature. This
school of thought seeks to analyze and describe the ways in which literature portrays the narrative of
male domination by exploring the economic, social, political, and psychological forces embedded within
literature. This way of thinking and criticizing works can be said to have changed the way literary texts
are viewed and studied, as well as changing and expanding the canon of what is commonly taught. It is
used a lot in Greek myths.

Example:

Feminist Criticism in "A Rose for Emily"

An examination of Emily Grierson's role as a woman in the context of the traditional, patriarchal South is
a critical component of a feminist criticism of William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." Emily's status in the
community is largely defined by her relation to her father, whom the town respects. Without a father or
husband in her life, Emily becomes physically isolated from the community. The honor she maintains is
rooted in her family name and her sense of propriety.

In Faulkner's Gothic masterpiece, there are also elements of feminist criticism with respect to Emily's
character and the narrator as feminine.

Emily's character
Certainly Emily lives under the patriarchy of her father as she becomes "a duty... a sort of hereditary
obligation upon the town." Symbolically her father dominates over her as she stands in front of his
portrait:

On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplaces stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily's father.

10. Queer Theory

Queer theory questions the fixed categories of sexual identity and the cognitive paradigms generated by
normative (that is, what is considered “normal”) sexual ideology. To “queer” becomes an act by which
stable boundaries of sexual identity are transgressed, reversed, mimicked, or otherwise critiqued.
“Queering” can be enacted on behalf of all nonnormative sexualities and identities as well, all that is
considered by the dominant paradigms of culture to be alien, strange, unfamiliar, transgressive, odd—in
short, queer.

Example:

Gay/Lesbian/Queer Theory: The Zoo Story as a Love Story

Edward Albee's The Zoo Story can be analyzed through a gay/lesbian/queer lens. However, the only two
characters in this play are both males.

Throughout The Zoo Story the character Peter, who is written as the married, “straight” character, seems
to have a better, while Jerry, the character who has had a homosexual past, has more difficult living
situations and social problems; Jerry understands the reality that he is lower in the social hierarchy of his
society and decides to end his life because of that.